0:00:02 > 0:00:04Er...
0:00:06 > 0:00:09God, I don't even know if I can answer it any more.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11What is Outsider Art? Erm...
0:00:13 > 0:00:17Basically, Outsider Art is...
0:00:17 > 0:00:19No, I can't... Start again.
0:00:19 > 0:00:20What is Outsider Art?
0:00:20 > 0:00:28I don't know, you got me. I been trying to figure that out.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32I've certainly been called worse things in my life
0:00:32 > 0:00:34than an Outsider Artist.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37Is that somebody that's working outside?
0:00:37 > 0:00:42You know, that doesn't mind if it rains or something,
0:00:42 > 0:00:44and they'll draw outside?
0:00:44 > 0:00:46That's what I would've said.
0:00:46 > 0:00:51In fact, I was a bit of an Outsider Artist.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54I was over on a bench over in Hyde Park,
0:00:54 > 0:00:59laying low from the cops at night, doing drawings!
0:01:00 > 0:01:01What do you mean?
0:01:07 > 0:01:11Well, I suppose so, but what does an outsider...?
0:01:11 > 0:01:14What does an insider feel like?
0:01:14 > 0:01:16How are you saying the name?
0:01:16 > 0:01:17Outsider Art.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20Ah, Outsider? I don't know.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23Maybe is from a different planet?
0:01:23 > 0:01:25Represent for me Outsider.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29Whatever you call it, when you see it, you know it.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33You're looking for things that make you go, "Oh, my God."
0:01:33 > 0:01:35And that's Outsider Art.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Once upon a time, in the Italian countryside not far from Venice,
0:02:04 > 0:02:08there lived a young boy named Carlo Zinelli.
0:02:08 > 0:02:10Carlo's mother died when he was very young
0:02:10 > 0:02:14and he was taken out of school to go and work in the fields,
0:02:14 > 0:02:15tending to his father's cattle.
0:02:18 > 0:02:19When he grew into a young man
0:02:19 > 0:02:23he joined the army and was sent off to fight in a terrible war.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44But he returned after just two months, and anyone who knew Carlo
0:02:44 > 0:02:47could tell that something was very wrong with him.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51He behaved strangely, and refused to utter a single word.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57They tried to cure him with electricity, but that didn't work,
0:02:57 > 0:03:00and so he was sent away to an asylum with high walls
0:03:00 > 0:03:01and locks on the doors.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05And there he would stay, hidden from the world.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08One day Carlo picked up a stone from the ground
0:03:08 > 0:03:11and began to draw on the walls.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15The nurses stopped him immediately, but Carlo couldn't stop.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18He wanted to draw everywhere, on anything.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22After a while the doctors realised it kept him quiet,
0:03:22 > 0:03:26and so they gave him some broken old pencils and left him to it.
0:03:27 > 0:03:32Then one day, a Scottish artist called Michael Noble arrived.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34He was married to a rich Italian contessa
0:03:34 > 0:03:38and had come to the hospital to cure his fondness for whisky.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41He saw what Carlo was doing with primitive equipment,
0:03:41 > 0:03:42and was outraged.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47"This man is an artist! You must let him create!"
0:03:47 > 0:03:50And so, with the contessa's money,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53Michael Noble created a studio inside the asylum,
0:03:53 > 0:03:56with good brushes and plenty of paint.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01Carlo Zinelli may have been unable to talk,
0:04:01 > 0:04:03but something else poured out of him.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24The floodgates opened.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27Carlo spent eight hours painting every day,
0:04:27 > 0:04:30completely engrossed in his work.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34By the time he died, he had made nearly 2,000 paintings.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41These works were once dismissed as the scrawlings of a lunatic.
0:04:41 > 0:04:46Now Carlo Zinelli's work is on show 70 miles from the asylum,
0:04:46 > 0:04:49at the biggest and most prestigious event in the art calendar.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14It's early summer and the Venice Biennale is just beginning.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18This festival is a barometer for the contemporary art world,
0:05:18 > 0:05:20it reflects currents trends.
0:05:20 > 0:05:21And, this year,
0:05:21 > 0:05:26so-called Outsider Artists like Carlo Zinelli are the hot topic.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30..and Carlo became very prolific and he started doing more and more work.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34His psychiatrist then took his art to see Jean Dubuffet
0:05:34 > 0:05:35and Andre Breton...
0:05:35 > 0:05:39Carlo's work is here in Venice thanks to this man -
0:05:39 > 0:05:41the director of the Museum Of Everything.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52The crosses there upside-down must be the graves of the soldiers
0:05:52 > 0:05:55and that star is the star of the Alpini soldiers,
0:05:55 > 0:05:57which he was conscripted in.
0:05:57 > 0:05:59You see that star everywhere.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01I think there are all kinds of riddles hidden in there,
0:06:01 > 0:06:04but I think they are just for him. From what I know, he didn't care.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06The minute he finished one, he sort of threw it away
0:06:06 > 0:06:09and the nurses and doctors would grab them up and a lot of them
0:06:09 > 0:06:11would make their way into their homes.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14But what happened to this work in the interim?
0:06:14 > 0:06:15Generally speaking,
0:06:15 > 0:06:20Carlo has been curated by and for the Outsider Art Brut audience,
0:06:20 > 0:06:26and that's why it's stayed this sort of...secret, I guess.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30Well, that secret is now well and truly out.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34The keynote exhibition here is the Encyclopaedic Palace,
0:06:34 > 0:06:36where self-taught artists
0:06:36 > 0:06:40rub shoulders with big names from the contemporary art world.
0:06:40 > 0:06:42Have a look at these.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44They were made by a 38-year-old man
0:06:44 > 0:06:47with absolutely no artistic training.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50This man saw visions and heard voices.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54In private, he induced hallucinations
0:06:54 > 0:06:58and then recorded everything in small journals,
0:06:58 > 0:07:01a process he kept up for 16 years.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09That man was Carl Jung,
0:07:09 > 0:07:11one of the founding fathers of modern psychology.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15Is he an Outsider Artist?
0:07:15 > 0:07:17I don't like to distinguish
0:07:17 > 0:07:18between insiders and outsiders,
0:07:18 > 0:07:20and that's what this exhibition is about.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23I've learned, particularly from artists,
0:07:23 > 0:07:27that artists are curious about any visual manifestations,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30and so I wanted to make a show for artists
0:07:30 > 0:07:33and for the public in which the distinctions
0:07:33 > 0:07:37between the professional and the self-taught are blurred.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39What this Biennale does
0:07:39 > 0:07:43is disrupt the story of art as most of us know it.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45It brings us back to the most basic questions
0:07:45 > 0:07:48about the power and the purpose of art.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56What if there is this inborn urge to be an artist?
0:07:56 > 0:07:58Inborn in these guys that had no chance.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03The thing that I think we look for in art is a kind of urgency,
0:08:03 > 0:08:05like the artist could not help but do it.
0:08:05 > 0:08:09And what we have in contemporary art right now is a lot of calculation.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12- Careerism, calculation. - The artist could...
0:08:12 > 0:08:14There's no sense of that urgency or necessity.
0:08:14 > 0:08:16It's fantastic to see here
0:08:16 > 0:08:20all these artists who were always marginalised until now
0:08:20 > 0:08:23and they're together with artists,
0:08:23 > 0:08:25and this is where they belong, obviously.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27And by the way, excuse me,
0:08:27 > 0:08:32Caravaggio was homeless, incarcerated and insane.
0:08:32 > 0:08:39And 90% of the artists I've ever met are kind of a little insane,
0:08:39 > 0:08:40so, boom.
0:08:40 > 0:08:42I just have to say
0:08:42 > 0:08:45I've never seen a Venice Biennale as strong as this one.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48I mean, for me, it's really...
0:08:48 > 0:08:50I think this is a turn in history here.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53It's a rupture. It's really very important.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24Some of the best work in Venice
0:09:24 > 0:09:28is by an Outsider Artist called Shinichi Sawada.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32The young man who made these strange
0:09:32 > 0:09:36and wonderful creatures works in almost total isolation
0:09:36 > 0:09:39at the top of a mountain in the backwoods of Japan.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46Sawada's magical and monstrous creatures
0:11:46 > 0:11:48seem to be the fruits of a personal mythology.
0:11:57 > 0:12:02His work has been shown in Venice, London, Paris, Amsterdam -
0:12:02 > 0:12:03an exhibition record
0:12:03 > 0:12:07that would be the envy of any Goldsmith's graduate his age.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12But, unlike those graduates, Sawada isn't engaged with the art world,
0:12:12 > 0:12:16the merry-go-round of dealers, openings and endless networking.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19His autism means he is unable to engage with it.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24Why does he make these things? It's not for profit.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26Certainly not for fame.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29Where does this urge to create come from?
0:12:56 > 0:12:57I like your...
0:12:59 > 0:13:01Oh, yeah!
0:13:21 > 0:13:25Japanese society expects everyone to plays a productive role,
0:13:25 > 0:13:27whatever condition they may have.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33Akane Kimura makes 0.8 yen, that's half a pence,
0:13:33 > 0:13:36for every sponge she puts in a plastic envelope.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42In the afternoon, she draws.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46And those pictures have been exhibited
0:13:46 > 0:13:48in museums across the world.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55THEY SPEAK JAPANESE
0:15:09 > 0:15:11This is Nobuji Higa.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18One day he was given a book of coffee table erotica.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28But he transforms those photographs into something altogether different.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35It was in the 1940s that a French artist called Jean Dubuffet
0:16:35 > 0:16:41first brought self-taught art out of the asylums, and into the galleries.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44Dubuffet christened it "Art Brut", a legacy of his days
0:16:44 > 0:16:49in the wine trade, where "brut" means raw or unsugared.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52He was interested in the lack of sophistication of the work,
0:16:52 > 0:16:55which he saw as its purity.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58For him, a spontaneous outpouring
0:16:58 > 0:17:02from the wellspring of creativity was the mark of TRUE art.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32Dubuffet toured asylums in central Europe, hoovering up work
0:17:32 > 0:17:36and creating an alternative canon of Art Brut.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40He discovered people like Aloise Corbaz,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44a Swiss governess whose imagined affair with Kaiser Wilhelm II
0:17:44 > 0:17:48led to an erotic outpouring of drawings, collage and murals.
0:17:49 > 0:17:54Or Adolf Wolfli, a schizophrenic goatherd and labourer
0:17:54 > 0:17:58who produced over 25,000 pages of drawings, literature and music
0:17:58 > 0:18:04in his own invented notation, all of which he signed "St Adolf II".
0:18:06 > 0:18:09Dubuffet often had problems finding art,
0:18:09 > 0:18:12because the hospitals rarely archived it.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15The psychiatric world didn't fully appreciate
0:18:15 > 0:18:18the value of what their patients were making.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26BIRDSONG
0:18:26 > 0:18:28But times have changed.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38BIRDSONG
0:18:46 > 0:18:52Here in the forest north of Vienna lies the Art / Brut Centre, Gugging.
0:18:52 > 0:18:56Gugging is famous for its House of Artists,
0:18:56 > 0:18:59home to 14 psychiatric patients who have been
0:18:59 > 0:19:03plucked from the Austrian system thanks to their artistic talent.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34Unlike the day centres of Japan, these artists live here full-time.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39There is no obligation for them to make art,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42but still it pours out of them.
0:20:17 > 0:20:19So you've brought the outsiders inside.
0:20:19 > 0:20:21How has the art world responded to that?
0:20:24 > 0:20:30In the '80s, it was very difficult because on the one hand
0:20:30 > 0:20:34the world of psychiatry didn't understand it,
0:20:34 > 0:20:40and on the other hand the art world saw this experiment.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45It was not really presented as art.
0:20:45 > 0:20:52So what I wanted to show was that all the single pieces of art,
0:20:52 > 0:20:57of every good Art Brut artist, has the same worth
0:20:57 > 0:21:02as any other single piece of any other kind of art.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04If you buy a Van Gogh,
0:21:04 > 0:21:08you have to pay 200 million,
0:21:08 > 0:21:13and then the illness doesn't play any role.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15So it's the art that's important, is what you're saying,
0:21:15 > 0:21:18and let's not focus on the case studies.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21But how do you look after the artists, then?
0:21:21 > 0:21:24One thing is the private life of an artist,
0:21:24 > 0:21:27and the other thing is his professional life as an artist.
0:21:27 > 0:21:34So on the one hand we supported the artist in their private needs,
0:21:34 > 0:21:38with illness or whatever.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42And on the other side we managed, more or less, the art -
0:21:42 > 0:21:45we organised exhibitions, we made publications,
0:21:45 > 0:21:50and we selected their works because they themselves couldn't select.
0:21:50 > 0:21:56It's the same work as any gallerist works his artists.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01Perhaps the best-known Gugging artist
0:22:01 > 0:22:05is the now deceased August Walla.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08It was almost as though his creative urges could not be contained
0:22:08 > 0:22:12within his room, and exploded into the surrounding countryside,
0:22:12 > 0:22:15which he peppered with his work on any available surface.
0:22:17 > 0:22:19The Vatican has the Sistine Chapel,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22and Gugging has August Walla's old room.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41INDISTINCT
0:23:07 > 0:23:10Come, I show you a picture.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17Look it.
0:23:24 > 0:23:25This is from...
0:23:25 > 0:23:27HE SPEAKS GERMAN
0:24:36 > 0:24:38It's a lot of money.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45I see we have these images of the artists on the walls here.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48The fact that you're selling and exhibiting this work,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51pretty successfully, what impact does that have on the artists?
0:24:51 > 0:24:54It depends on the artist.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58Johann Garber is very aware of who he is.
0:24:58 > 0:25:00I know, we went to Basel to an exhibition
0:25:00 > 0:25:05in a gallery there, and we had to fly with the airplane.
0:25:05 > 0:25:10And he asked me, "Nina, could you please carry my luggage?"
0:25:10 > 0:25:13And I said, "How come?"
0:25:13 > 0:25:14And he said, "Yeah, I'm the artist".
0:25:14 > 0:25:16SHE LAUGHS
0:25:16 > 0:25:19So in a way they're just like all these other famous artists,
0:25:19 > 0:25:21they're all divas?
0:25:21 > 0:25:24Yes. On one side, of course, yeah.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27Erm... So... And why not?
0:25:30 > 0:25:33LEONHARD: That's my picture. My picture.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35- That's my picture.- That's my picture.
0:26:56 > 0:26:59JOHANN: We have place for 14 people, nothing more.
0:26:59 > 0:27:04That means I invite somebody if I see that he has a talent,
0:27:04 > 0:27:10but if he will become an artist is a question - you never know.
0:27:10 > 0:27:11It needs time.
0:27:11 > 0:27:15Sometimes it's very easy, sometimes it needs ten years,
0:27:15 > 0:27:17sometimes it never will be.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20You're a very patient man, Johann.
0:27:20 > 0:27:21It's...
0:27:21 > 0:27:28Life goes over 80 years, and not just for three months, you know?
0:27:36 > 0:27:39This is Gunther Shutzenhofer.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43He currently has a solo show at a gallery in New York.
0:27:43 > 0:27:45GUNTHER LAUGHS
0:27:59 > 0:28:04I love his work because it doesn't look like anything that I know,
0:28:04 > 0:28:06after doing this for 35 years.
0:28:20 > 0:28:22Was ist das, Gunther?
0:28:22 > 0:28:26This is a...a...a radio.
0:28:27 > 0:28:29Radio.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31This is a radio.
0:28:31 > 0:28:39Shutzenhofer's work seems to have that ability to transport
0:28:39 > 0:28:43diverse people in the same way that an inkblot test does.
0:28:43 > 0:28:45I've seen it over and over again.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48You look at something. "What is this image?"
0:28:48 > 0:28:50One person will say, "Oh, it's a radio." "It's a car."
0:28:50 > 0:28:54"It's an aeroplane." "It's a comb." "It's a..."
0:28:54 > 0:28:58And everyone is bringing their own brain to the work.
0:29:00 > 0:29:02And that's a wonderful thing.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26Everyone is desperately trying to put Outsider Art
0:29:26 > 0:29:28into a nice, neat little box.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31And it doesn't really fit in
0:29:31 > 0:29:34because it's something that happened independently.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37It's something that owes nothing to art history.
0:29:37 > 0:29:41When you owe nothing to art history, you really have a problem.
0:29:41 > 0:29:47This work, that was not made with that trapping of, you know,
0:29:47 > 0:29:49"Will I get into one of the good galleries?
0:29:49 > 0:29:50"Will I be in the Biennale?"
0:29:50 > 0:29:52It's very nice that it's there,
0:29:52 > 0:29:55it deserves a place in the Venice Biennale.
0:29:55 > 0:30:01But at the same time I don't want to be so much part of that whole,
0:30:01 > 0:30:03"Oh, what's the market doing?"
0:30:03 > 0:30:06Because then. you're like financial stocks.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09You should love it because it inspires you to love,
0:30:09 > 0:30:12not because people say "Oh, this is safe now to love,
0:30:12 > 0:30:15"because it's selling big, we can all get in on it..."
0:30:15 > 0:30:18What is that? I don't want that!
0:30:18 > 0:30:19Well...
0:30:21 > 0:30:25We had grand ambitions about ten years ago that we were going
0:30:25 > 0:30:30to try to create a whole category at Christie's of Outsider Art.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35Unfortunately, there weren't enough investor/speculator types
0:30:35 > 0:30:39who would be willing to fuel the market by reselling.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42That is one of the problems we had
0:30:42 > 0:30:44with creating an auction category.
0:30:44 > 0:30:46Many of the passionate
0:30:46 > 0:30:49Outsider Art collectors
0:30:49 > 0:30:51are in some ways as obsessive
0:30:51 > 0:30:53as the artist they collect.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56They love the works they have,
0:30:56 > 0:30:57and they keep them.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00- Aren't they beautiful? - Yes, they are very beautiful.
0:31:02 > 0:31:06I've been collecting this group of cards for about 30 years, either
0:31:06 > 0:31:10if they came up in auction or from private collections or wherever.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15Madge Gill was controlled by a spirit guide,
0:31:15 > 0:31:18- who she named as Myrninerest. - Myrninerest?
0:31:18 > 0:31:20Yes. "My inner rest".
0:31:20 > 0:31:23I would think that these are a repeated self-portrait,
0:31:23 > 0:31:25over and over again.
0:31:27 > 0:31:31There is an obsessive quality to many of these artists.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35Often - like the British outsider Madge Gill - they work in isolation.
0:31:39 > 0:31:43Where professional artists forge their creations in a dialogue
0:31:43 > 0:31:48with art history, the outsider is engaged in a monologue.
0:31:48 > 0:31:50One of the exciting things about seeing an Outsider Artist
0:31:50 > 0:31:53you've never seen before is that you've never seen
0:31:53 > 0:31:54anything like it before either.
0:31:54 > 0:31:58Because each Outsider Artist is like an art movement of one.
0:31:58 > 0:32:01They invent their own techniques, their own disciplines,
0:32:01 > 0:32:04their own ways of working and their own visions.
0:32:04 > 0:32:06That's why they come up with
0:32:06 > 0:32:08something completely individual each time.
0:32:08 > 0:32:12Now this is a little picture by Joe Coleman.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16It's a self-portrait of Joe, just after he'd carried out
0:32:16 > 0:32:20his autopsy on a dead body in a Hungarian hospital.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23That's him there - it's called The Pathologist.
0:32:25 > 0:32:28I couldn't afford his paintings - they're so expensive!
0:32:28 > 0:32:30Big paintings, about this big.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33So I said, "Joe, can you just do me a little tiny painting
0:32:33 > 0:32:35"that I can just about afford?"
0:32:36 > 0:32:39My little grandson is really frightened of it.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43Welcome to The Odditorium.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46OFFBEAT MUSIC PLAYS
0:33:25 > 0:33:27I got kicked out of art school.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30And then they asked me to be an adviser many years later,
0:33:30 > 0:33:35after I had a certain...following at that point.
0:33:35 > 0:33:40So I said, "OK, I'll be an adviser." So I told the kid,
0:33:40 > 0:33:42"Get the fuck out of school,
0:33:42 > 0:33:45"because you're not going to learn a goddamn thing in that school."
0:33:45 > 0:33:47You have to go out there and live,
0:33:47 > 0:33:50and that's where you're going to find your art, not in art school.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58At home it was really, pretty fucked up because, you know,
0:33:58 > 0:34:01my father was a pretty violent alcoholic,
0:34:01 > 0:34:07and he tormented my mother and the rest of the family.
0:34:07 > 0:34:12I found release and relief in drawing.
0:34:14 > 0:34:18When I started painting, my brushstrokes were bigger,
0:34:18 > 0:34:22and now I barely even move my brush.
0:34:22 > 0:34:25It's a one-hair brush and I use jeweller's lenses.
0:34:25 > 0:34:27I'm looking for more and more information
0:34:27 > 0:34:30on the surface of the painting.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33Even though it's coming out of somewhere -
0:34:33 > 0:34:37out there or in here - but it's appearing here,
0:34:37 > 0:34:39and that's where I'm finding it.
0:34:39 > 0:34:43And the more minute that I look, the more that I find.
0:34:46 > 0:34:50I try to take care of the misfits, and the losers.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57The losers never get to write their side of history.
0:34:57 > 0:34:58Except in my work.
0:35:01 > 0:35:06Joe Coleman's customers include Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08Prices for his paintings have risen steadily,
0:35:08 > 0:35:10and there is now a waiting list.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12People want the work quicker
0:35:12 > 0:35:14than his one-hair brush can paint it.
0:35:15 > 0:35:19In fact, such is his popularity that, in a peculiar twist,
0:35:19 > 0:35:23he is now banned from showing at the Outsider Art Fair
0:35:23 > 0:35:25on account of being too successful.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28What does this tell us?
0:35:28 > 0:35:32Perhaps it suggests we fetishise these artists - we prefer them
0:35:32 > 0:35:34to be poor and struggling.
0:35:36 > 0:35:41Across town lives one such artist who fits that bill.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44Hi! Welcome to New York! Come in!
0:35:44 > 0:35:46Come in here.
0:35:50 > 0:35:52Yeah, now you can do.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57It's OK?
0:35:57 > 0:36:02When Ionel Talpazan was still a boy in Romania, he had an encounter with
0:36:02 > 0:36:07what he believes was a UFO, which bathed him in a strange blue light.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10His life's work is an attempt to make sense of this.
0:36:44 > 0:36:46Go ahead.
0:36:46 > 0:36:47Maybe you like it.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14ETHEREAL MUSIC PLAYS
0:37:36 > 0:37:40Ionel's parents sold him for just under £100 when he was a baby.
0:37:41 > 0:37:46As a young man he took drastic measures to escape
0:37:46 > 0:37:47the Ceausescu regime,
0:37:47 > 0:37:50and swam the Danube from Romania to Yugoslavia,
0:37:50 > 0:37:54eventually finding refuge in the United States.
0:37:54 > 0:38:00He has lived in this one-room apartment in Harlem for 18 years.
0:38:00 > 0:38:03It was at the Outsider Art Fair - I had a booth there,
0:38:03 > 0:38:06I used to show Outsiders' work there.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09But Ionel used to be outside, in the snow every day,
0:38:09 > 0:38:11selling his artwork on the street.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15So, in a way, Ionel shot himself in the foot
0:38:15 > 0:38:20because he was always outside selling his work for a fraction of
0:38:20 > 0:38:23the cost that I would like to have sold it for on my booth at the fair.
0:39:02 > 0:39:04HE INHALES DEEPLY
0:39:48 > 0:39:51Ionel may be ploughing a lonely furrow.
0:39:51 > 0:39:54But then again...they all laughed at Christopher Columbus
0:39:54 > 0:39:57when he said the world was round.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00They all laughed when Edison recorded sound.
0:40:00 > 0:40:03JAUNTY MUSIC PLAYS
0:40:05 > 0:40:07The Alternative Guide To The Universe
0:40:07 > 0:40:09is brimming with mavericks -
0:40:11 > 0:40:15self-taught artists, unlicensed architects,
0:40:15 > 0:40:18fringe physicists and visionary inventors.
0:40:22 > 0:40:24Hayward Gallery director Ralph Rugoff
0:40:24 > 0:40:27treated me to a private tour as it was hung.
0:40:27 > 0:40:30ROBOT WHIRS AND CLANGS
0:40:32 > 0:40:36There's something about his movement that is quite scary, isn't it?
0:40:40 > 0:40:44Wu Yulu is a farmer in China who has taught himself
0:40:44 > 0:40:49how to make robots, using whatever materials are at hand.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52He's made robots who commit suicide, robots who smoke cigarettes,
0:40:52 > 0:40:56robots who do the dishes for him.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58And this is a child robot.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01ROBOT WHIRS AND CLANGS
0:41:01 > 0:41:05When you think about the idea of a child robot in China,
0:41:05 > 0:41:09given China's policy of only one child per family,
0:41:09 > 0:41:13who's going to be a sibling for all those single children?
0:41:13 > 0:41:16This is a remarkable French artist named Marcel Storr.
0:41:16 > 0:41:19These were all made in the 1970s.
0:41:19 > 0:41:22He was an orphan, he was deaf.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25He worked as a street sweeper in the Bois de Boulogne.
0:41:25 > 0:41:29He would go home at night and make these incredibly
0:41:29 > 0:41:33intricate drawings - these were cityscapes he called Megalopolises,
0:41:33 > 0:41:37and this was his blueprint for the rebuilding of Paris, which
0:41:37 > 0:41:40he was convinced was going to be destroyed in a nuclear attack.
0:41:40 > 0:41:43This was one of his last, unfinished works.
0:41:43 > 0:41:47It gives you a sense of how he worked, which is great.
0:41:47 > 0:41:52Incredibly detailed, painstaking, elaborate lines
0:41:52 > 0:41:55that he's drawing, where they're so small,
0:41:55 > 0:41:58I can't even see them with my eye any more.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01It's this idea also, in this art,
0:42:01 > 0:42:05if you can't live in the real world or you're not happy there,
0:42:05 > 0:42:08create an alternative reality for yourself.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11And that's what he seems to have done.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18Paul Laffoley is an inventor of all kinds of devices. But he was one of
0:42:18 > 0:42:21the assistant architects working on the original World Trade Center in
0:42:21 > 0:42:25New York, and at a certain point, he went off in a different direction.
0:42:29 > 0:42:32It's good to be unknown for a long time.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36Because then you can actually pump up what you're doing,
0:42:36 > 0:42:42and make it into a format where they can't destroy it.
0:42:42 > 0:42:46Because if you're in an art school - that's the worst place to go.
0:42:46 > 0:42:48That's the one thing I said to myself.
0:42:48 > 0:42:50Never enter an art school.
0:42:50 > 0:42:56I did go to an architectural school, but got kicked out after one year.
0:42:56 > 0:42:58For conceptual deviance.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05Paul came up with plans for a time machine where your body
0:43:05 > 0:43:08doesn't travel through time - you're just able to see
0:43:08 > 0:43:10what different times look like.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13Mentally, you can project yourself.
0:43:13 > 0:43:15I mean, Stephen Hawking said
0:43:15 > 0:43:18we'll see a time machine in the next 50 years.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21Laffoley says he had an encounter with an alien intelligence
0:43:21 > 0:43:23that changed his life.
0:43:23 > 0:43:25And that directed him to make this painting.
0:43:25 > 0:43:27And that if you put your hands...
0:43:27 > 0:43:31This is the left hand of the past, the right hand of the future.
0:43:31 > 0:43:33If you put your hands, Alan, on those two things,
0:43:33 > 0:43:36and put your head forward,
0:43:36 > 0:43:39you're supposed to be able to download intelligence
0:43:39 > 0:43:40from another dimension.
0:43:47 > 0:43:48You look different.
0:43:48 > 0:43:50I'll let you know.
0:43:51 > 0:43:54So this is a sort of injection of something...
0:43:54 > 0:43:56Also you could see it in Venice as well -
0:43:56 > 0:43:59a different way of looking at the world,
0:43:59 > 0:44:02a sort of mutation of art and science
0:44:02 > 0:44:05and mathematics, and mysticism...
0:44:05 > 0:44:10I think a lot of work in this show hearkens back to a kind of
0:44:10 > 0:44:13Renaissance moment, when science and art weren't so different.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17You think about Leonardo and Michelangelo,
0:44:17 > 0:44:22they were making weaponry, they were thinking about flight,
0:44:22 > 0:44:24they were thinking, you know, about science
0:44:24 > 0:44:25as well as thinking about art.
0:44:25 > 0:44:28They were all engaged in the pursuit of knowledge,
0:44:28 > 0:44:31and understanding what it meant to be human,
0:44:31 > 0:44:34which is something contemporary art has lost sight of.
0:44:34 > 0:44:38Supposedly now we have experts who look after that for all of us.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41All these people in this show are people who have decided
0:44:41 > 0:44:43they don't want the experts to look after it.
0:44:43 > 0:44:45They've got their own ideas about how this works.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48George Widener is the kind of person who will see a licence plate,
0:44:48 > 0:44:50it'll make him think of a date.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54It'll be Thursday, he'll then think of every event
0:44:54 > 0:44:55he's ever read or heard of
0:44:55 > 0:44:58that happened on a Thursday with that number date.
0:45:01 > 0:45:04And he's made landscapes, whole cities,
0:45:04 > 0:45:06based on these ideas of time.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15George believes in this idea called The Singularity,
0:45:15 > 0:45:20which is, that in the near future, machines will become intelligent,
0:45:20 > 0:45:23we'll have artificial intelligence.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26And a lot of people put this date at 2045,
0:45:26 > 0:45:29which now is starting to seem not that far away.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53I started to listen to this voice inside of me and stuff
0:45:53 > 0:45:56that was interested in these patterns.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58And it started to become very strong.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02You know, I was institutionalised at one point,
0:46:02 > 0:46:06because I was going over these things in my head
0:46:06 > 0:46:08over and over and over and over again.
0:46:30 > 0:46:32There's a thing called a magic square.
0:46:32 > 0:46:37These numbers, if you add them up this way, they add up to 34.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41If you add them up this way, they add up to 34, right?
0:46:41 > 0:46:47In all directions, they add up to an identical sum of 34.
0:46:47 > 0:46:54And in the case of this sculpture - there's 2, 17, 29, 11,
0:46:54 > 0:46:5710, 5 and 13 add up to 70.
0:46:57 > 0:47:02And I create symmetrical patterns using the days of the week.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06And there's this linkage between the present, the past and the future.
0:47:08 > 0:47:10What happened in the past was...
0:47:10 > 0:47:13I was, you know, trying to do too much in my life,
0:47:13 > 0:47:15and I kind of got overwhelmed
0:47:15 > 0:47:18and went from being an engineering scholar
0:47:18 > 0:47:22to being on the streets and stuff.
0:47:22 > 0:47:27Now I'm in galleries, I associate with dealers, art dealers,
0:47:27 > 0:47:30I show at art fairs, I sell my work.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35You know, so, what to make of it? I don't know, you know?
0:47:36 > 0:47:38I don't think about it too much.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43If you were to look at the Fridays of 1912 -
0:47:43 > 0:47:45there's January 5, 12, 19, 26,
0:47:45 > 0:47:48February 2, 9, 16, 23,
0:47:48 > 0:47:50March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29,
0:47:50 > 0:47:52April 5, 12, 19, 26,
0:47:52 > 0:47:56May 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 and so on.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00So I see them in my head, they line up and stuff.
0:48:00 > 0:48:06I feel, um...that there will be huge technological changes in the future.
0:48:06 > 0:48:10Machines will be able to scan these very rapidly,
0:48:10 > 0:48:14and see these interconnections and find this sort of interesting.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16They're going to need artwork too,
0:48:16 > 0:48:19the robots and machines of the future.
0:48:19 > 0:48:24So I'm simply making some work, for them and stuff,
0:48:24 > 0:48:26to relax with, and stuff.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30I'm just being useful, I think. That's what I'm doing, you know.
0:49:01 > 0:49:06The Museum of Everything started life in a former dairy in 2009.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09It has an exceptional collection of Outsider Art,
0:49:09 > 0:49:13and just as revolutionary as the work is the way it's presented.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18With no fixed abode, it takes over spaces for a limited time only.
0:49:19 > 0:49:22The ramshackle, hand-knitted aesthetic
0:49:22 > 0:49:25is the work of Eve Stewart - the award winning production designer
0:49:25 > 0:49:28of Les Mis and The King's Speech.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31It's playful and unpretentious - a million miles
0:49:31 > 0:49:35from the intimidating white space of most contemporary galleries.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42Here it is again, popping up in London, in Selfridges.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45Who else would think to stage an art exhibition
0:49:45 > 0:49:47slap bang in the middle of Oxford Street?
0:49:58 > 0:50:01This man pops up everywhere too.
0:50:01 > 0:50:04The museum's freewheeling director, James Brett.
0:50:05 > 0:50:08Now, he is the ringmaster of a travelling circus
0:50:08 > 0:50:11as it hurtles across Russia,
0:50:11 > 0:50:14sniffing out secret works by unknown artists.
0:50:16 > 0:50:21This convoy has collected new work in four different Russian cities.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25And now it has come to a stop in Moscow,
0:50:25 > 0:50:29for a huge show of that work at Dasha Zhukova's Garage.
0:50:56 > 0:51:00This very graphic work is by Oleg Gordov, who is a street cleaner,
0:51:00 > 0:51:03and a handyman and he's a self-taught historian.
0:51:03 > 0:51:07And when you talk to him, actually, he was a really troublesome kid,
0:51:07 > 0:51:09and I think narrowly escaped being in prison.
0:51:09 > 0:51:11And he's a sweet character.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14But obviously, as you can see on this wall, there's a lot of Nazis.
0:51:16 > 0:51:20It's one thing to have one Hitler in your show - we've got two Hitlers.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23And that Hitler is what sort of sold me on him,
0:51:23 > 0:51:26because it's Hitler and he's just realised he's lost the war.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29And if you look at his features, you can see the pain.
0:51:31 > 0:51:36This one, which is again, you know, same period - it's a Russian soldier,
0:51:36 > 0:51:41seductively licking the cheek of a female Nazi officer.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44And there's something about the humour of the whole thing,
0:51:44 > 0:51:48that actually he's thrilled by these episodes of war.
0:51:49 > 0:51:53And somehow, nobody else was doing it like that.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57I certainly hope he's not a fascist. I can't really tell.
0:52:14 > 0:52:17I have a really complicated relationship with this artist.
0:52:17 > 0:52:21The first time I saw her work, I was very confident -
0:52:21 > 0:52:23"not for us, thanks very much."
0:52:23 > 0:52:28Because it's too...it's too simple in its depiction of the world.
0:52:28 > 0:52:29But this woman is far from simple
0:52:29 > 0:52:32and once I started looking at what she does...
0:52:32 > 0:52:37You happen to be pointing the camera at the ones that changed my mind.
0:52:37 > 0:52:40The artist, Pyzhova, she's about 80 years old.
0:52:40 > 0:52:42She's not skinny.
0:52:42 > 0:52:44And she lives in this apartment block and is very proud
0:52:44 > 0:52:48of what I think is 150 or so lovers
0:52:48 > 0:52:50that she's had during her lifetime.
0:52:50 > 0:52:52She's a very erotic woman.
0:52:52 > 0:52:56You haven't just got animals doing it with their own species,
0:52:56 > 0:52:58you've got animals doing it with other species.
0:52:58 > 0:53:01And then things get worse.
0:53:01 > 0:53:05This is not a one-off, or a two-off, there are hundreds of these pictures.
0:53:05 > 0:53:08It's not that these are masterpieces, but still...
0:53:08 > 0:53:10I'm in love with this picture.
0:53:10 > 0:53:15The two brontosauruses making out by the river is just phenomenal.
0:53:15 > 0:53:16And it probably happened.
0:53:33 > 0:53:35This artist, you've got to look at.
0:53:35 > 0:53:37I mean, just take a big look.
0:53:37 > 0:53:40This is a 15-year project of one man,
0:53:40 > 0:53:43who goes every day to the park, in Nizhny Novgorod,
0:53:43 > 0:53:46and paints the same, or virtually the same landscape.
0:53:46 > 0:53:47And what he's documenting,
0:53:47 > 0:53:50from the top of this to the bottom, is the weather.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53My only sadness is that we were only able to get a year of Viktor.
0:53:53 > 0:53:54I was hoping for five years.
0:53:54 > 0:54:00The whole of this museum in Moscow couldn't contain all 15 years.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03It took us six months to persuade him to allow us to show it here.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05Partly because he said,
0:54:05 > 0:54:07"Someone's going to call up and they'll need to know,
0:54:07 > 0:54:09"what was the weather, March 2010?"
0:54:09 > 0:54:11I said "No-one's going to call you up.
0:54:11 > 0:54:14"This is a great opportunity to communicate your life's work!"
0:54:14 > 0:54:16There are very few contemporary artists
0:54:16 > 0:54:19who would spend 15 years on one project.
0:54:19 > 0:54:22He didn't even make it to the opening of the exhibition
0:54:22 > 0:54:26because he was afraid that he would miss a day of doing this.
0:55:02 > 0:55:04I loved the word "outsider" at the beginning
0:55:04 > 0:55:07because, of course, I felt it associated with me
0:55:07 > 0:55:09and I can be weird,
0:55:09 > 0:55:12and I like that weirdness, I like my differences.
0:55:12 > 0:55:13But the more I looked into it,
0:55:13 > 0:55:15the more I thought, this just can't be correct.
0:55:15 > 0:55:20I realised that the mainstream museums were using it to segregate.
0:55:20 > 0:55:22The other big thing for me is not to present it
0:55:22 > 0:55:27as the work of a bunch of crazy people, I mean, if I'm really frank.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30That's often the assumption.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34So the other key issue is to say, "Look, who's crazy?
0:55:34 > 0:55:38"Who's disabled? Who's able?" Why do we think that
0:55:38 > 0:55:42if someone has a mental health issue, it's just a cut-and-dried thing?
0:55:42 > 0:55:45Everybody has a mental health issue, it's a question of degree.
0:55:45 > 0:55:49And once you start to understand that, I think you take a step back
0:55:49 > 0:55:52into creativity and our reasons for making.
0:55:56 > 0:55:57Why do we create?
0:55:58 > 0:56:02Picasso said that every child is an artist.
0:56:02 > 0:56:06The problem...is how to remain one, once we grow up.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25Welcome to Creative Growth Art Centre.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28Creative Growth Art Centre is a good place.
0:56:28 > 0:56:30Yeah, let's go do it!
0:56:37 > 0:56:41San Francisco has always been a crucible for radical ideas.
0:56:43 > 0:56:46So it's no surprise that it's home to Creative Growth.
0:56:49 > 0:56:53Every day, more than a 100 people that society calls disabled
0:56:53 > 0:56:56come here...to make art.
0:57:14 > 0:57:17The notion was by the founders originally,
0:57:17 > 0:57:19Elias Katz and his wife Florence,
0:57:19 > 0:57:23that there's an innate creative impulse in all humans,
0:57:23 > 0:57:27and given encouragement and materials, that will come out.
0:57:33 > 0:57:36Dan Miller was the first Creative Growth artist
0:57:36 > 0:57:39to have his work bought by New York's Museum of Modern Art.
0:57:50 > 0:57:52For me, when I watch Dan work,
0:57:52 > 0:57:55you see a kind of anxiety and frustration.
0:57:55 > 0:57:58Almost as if everything he needs to say is in his head
0:57:58 > 0:58:01and he's just really struggling with getting it out.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04For most of us who are speech-enabled
0:58:04 > 0:58:06we would talk it out, and Dan doesn't seem to be able to,
0:58:06 > 0:58:08so he needs to draw it out,
0:58:08 > 0:58:11and really hope that someone will understand,
0:58:11 > 0:58:15will get the translation, will get the urgency of his message.
0:59:07 > 0:59:09I love the atmosphere of this place.
0:59:09 > 0:59:12You can walk in off the street and just talk to the artists,
0:59:12 > 0:59:14buy a piece of work.
0:59:14 > 0:59:16Or a limited edition comic book.
0:59:16 > 0:59:17Or even a T-shirt.
0:59:30 > 0:59:35Now brown is the colour of chocolate Which we all know and love
0:59:35 > 0:59:37Taste that chocolate and you cannot tell
0:59:37 > 0:59:40If it's made from Hershey Ghirardelli, or Dove
0:59:40 > 0:59:44For in that tasty chocolate delight
0:59:44 > 0:59:46There is no black
0:59:46 > 0:59:48There is no white.
0:59:49 > 0:59:52All DJ Disco Duck - that's me.
0:59:52 > 0:59:54The All-Star Chocolate Heroes.
0:59:55 > 0:59:58You've created a whole new universe here.
0:59:58 > 1:00:02- Oh, yes.- Where did the All Star Chocolate Heroes come from?
1:00:02 > 1:00:04Well, it all just came from my head
1:00:04 > 1:00:09when I decided to have some superheroes of my own.
1:00:09 > 1:00:12The comic book right here is going to help me
1:00:12 > 1:00:14start my own business in entertainment.
1:00:14 > 1:00:16And a lot of people,
1:00:16 > 1:00:19whether they're my family or friends,
1:00:19 > 1:00:23are real proud of me of working real hard on this one.
1:00:23 > 1:00:25"Time to get busy up in here."
1:00:25 > 1:00:28- "This is their crib." Their crib is where they live, I take it?- Yeah.
1:00:28 > 1:00:32Green Nose - he's a type of arch-enemy
1:00:32 > 1:00:35who hates everything to do with chocolate.
1:00:35 > 1:00:39He doesn't even like to drink hot chocolate
1:00:39 > 1:00:44because he thinks that chocolate is no fun, but that's not really true -
1:00:44 > 1:00:46chocolate can be fun.
1:00:46 > 1:00:48"Now that you've captured Green Nose,
1:00:48 > 1:00:51"let's head down to Mel's for a chocolate shake."
1:00:51 > 1:00:55Yes. That was their reward for capturing Green Nose.
1:00:55 > 1:00:57Oh, here they are having their chocolate shake.
1:00:57 > 1:01:01I dedicate this one to all the ladies who have pretty feet,
1:01:01 > 1:01:06and for many guys who appreciate women's pretty feet.
1:01:08 > 1:01:11They can express how they feel, like I have.
1:01:11 > 1:01:14They can say nice things about a woman's pretty feet
1:01:14 > 1:01:17in a sweet, positive, civilised manner, like I have.
1:01:17 > 1:01:20You can't quite see their feet.
1:01:20 > 1:01:23Well, I can. Because I have good vision.
1:01:25 > 1:01:26Here's where the feet are at.
1:01:26 > 1:01:28Right now, I'm dealing with hair loss,
1:01:28 > 1:01:31but I'll have a plan to get my hair back.
1:01:31 > 1:01:33- You've got a plan, eh?- Mm-hm.
1:01:33 > 1:01:35- Let me know about it.- Oh, yes.
1:01:42 > 1:01:47Once upon a time, in a rough part of San Francisco,
1:01:47 > 1:01:49there lived a boy called William.
1:01:51 > 1:01:53He was different to the other kids...
1:01:54 > 1:01:57..and they would tease him at school.
1:01:58 > 1:01:59He would walk home
1:01:59 > 1:02:03and try to ignore the drunk men shouting in his street.
1:02:06 > 1:02:09Sometimes he heard gunshots outside his window.
1:02:11 > 1:02:13He wished they would go away.
1:02:17 > 1:02:22Then, one day, he came here and began to draw.
1:02:25 > 1:02:28He drew the people who had been shot, back to life.
1:02:31 > 1:02:35He drew his city, but the way he wanted it to be.
1:02:38 > 1:02:42And he drew beautiful and strong women he'd never met.
1:02:47 > 1:02:50Yeah, look what I drew right here.
1:02:50 > 1:02:54See what I drew here, it's a Lone Language, it's a Queen Sheba.
1:02:56 > 1:02:57See, she's a peacemaker.
1:02:57 > 1:03:00Lone Language the peacemaker.
1:03:00 > 1:03:02And she has beautiful eyes.
1:03:05 > 1:03:08# Hey, I just got back from another world
1:03:08 > 1:03:12# It was way, way past on the other side
1:03:12 > 1:03:16# It was across the mountain and through the sea
1:03:16 > 1:03:20# Past the moon, beyond all things that we've dreamed about
1:03:22 > 1:03:27# You've never in your life seen such colours
1:03:27 > 1:03:31# That glows like a twinkle in an eye... #
1:03:31 > 1:03:34WHISTLING
1:03:40 > 1:03:43The Museum of Modern Art in New York
1:03:43 > 1:03:46now has four of William Scott's paintings.
1:03:46 > 1:03:49He's also fond of making Halloween masks.
1:03:49 > 1:03:53And yes, that was him in Selfridge's window.
1:03:54 > 1:03:57William's been doing a series of paintings very recently
1:03:57 > 1:04:01about reinventing his life in the '70s.
1:04:01 > 1:04:05So William paints himself as either a successful basketball player,
1:04:05 > 1:04:06or popular at the prom,
1:04:06 > 1:04:09or with a happy, healthy family.
1:04:09 > 1:04:11And what he's doing is, he's going back
1:04:11 > 1:04:14to those transformative years to make them better.
1:04:14 > 1:04:16To make his life today better.
1:04:16 > 1:04:18To make the disability go away.
1:04:18 > 1:04:21To make an injury to his body that he had then disappear.
1:04:23 > 1:04:26That's me right here. That's me.
1:04:26 > 1:04:30It was on the beach at Santa Cruz beach boardwalk
1:04:30 > 1:04:32in another life of 1974.
1:04:32 > 1:04:34Another life.
1:04:35 > 1:04:38Yeah. I'm going to be like that and wear an afro
1:04:38 > 1:04:41and be like, I want to be like that, wearing an afro.
1:04:43 > 1:04:45With my...with my new body.
1:04:46 > 1:04:48With my new body.
1:04:48 > 1:04:51Er...a perf...a perfect body.
1:04:53 > 1:04:56- That's Michael Jackson.- Yeah.
1:04:56 > 1:04:59So you're on the front cover of Modern Painters, William?
1:04:59 > 1:05:00Yeah, that's right.
1:05:03 > 1:05:05That's a great picture.
1:05:07 > 1:05:09That's Christina?
1:05:09 > 1:05:10An invention, yeah.
1:05:10 > 1:05:15"Dear Christina Hernandez. I have been single for a long time.
1:05:15 > 1:05:18"I am tired being, it bothers me too much.
1:05:18 > 1:05:21"I wanted a wife real bad.
1:05:21 > 1:05:22"I've never had any kids.
1:05:22 > 1:05:25"I wanted to become a father. For good.
1:05:25 > 1:05:27"Christina, I wanted you to be
1:05:27 > 1:05:29"putting me into friendship and social skills."
1:05:29 > 1:05:33- Yeah.- Have you developed your friendship and social skills?
1:05:33 > 1:05:37- Nah.- You're pretty lovable, William, I think.- Yeah, uh-huh.
1:05:42 > 1:05:46There's something very moving and powerful about this place.
1:05:47 > 1:05:51It feels like an environment where anything is possible.
1:05:51 > 1:05:54And there is room for wit, for charm,
1:05:54 > 1:05:56and for mystery and magic.
1:06:08 > 1:06:11Art is about looking at the world in different ways.
1:06:14 > 1:06:16It lets us see things through the eyes of its maker.
1:06:18 > 1:06:22And in doing so, it refreshes our own view of the world.
1:06:23 > 1:06:25It's a tonic for the imagination.
1:06:28 > 1:06:29Every one of these artists
1:06:29 > 1:06:32has created and inhabits their own world
1:06:32 > 1:06:36with such conviction that it becomes recognisable to us.
1:06:38 > 1:06:41And the best part of all...
1:06:41 > 1:06:44is that we are invited to step inside.
1:06:45 > 1:06:47- OK?- Yeah.
1:07:12 > 1:07:15# Welcome to my world
1:07:17 > 1:07:21# Won't you come on in?
1:07:24 > 1:07:27# Miracles, I guess
1:07:29 > 1:07:32# Still happen now and then
1:07:35 > 1:07:39# Step into my heart
1:07:42 > 1:07:45# Leave your cares behind
1:07:48 > 1:07:50# Welcome to my world
1:07:53 > 1:07:57# Built with you in mind
1:08:11 > 1:08:14# Waiting just for you
1:08:16 > 1:08:24# Welcome to my world. #
1:08:27 > 1:08:31OK, that's it, that's it, Jack, it's a wrap.
1:08:31 > 1:08:33What are we doing here?
1:08:33 > 1:08:36Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd